Lorraine Kelly hits back at critic after revealing Lockerbie tragedy sparked PTSD

Lorraine Kelly has shut down someone who questioned her admission of suffering from PTSD in the wake of reporting on the Lockerbie bombing.

Back in December 1988, Lorraine was one of the first journalists to arrive on the scene of the terror attack, in which Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the small Scottish town mid-air, killing 270 people.

Before the police cordoned off the area, the presenter, now 63, saw first-hand the shocking aftermath of the disaster.

She’s now returned to the scene for a new documentary, Return To Lockerbie With Lorraine Kelly, in which she admits to still struggling with what she witnessed.

Ahead of it airing, Lorraine has spoken about how many people ‘didn’t appreciate the scale of what happened and the effect it had on people here’.

In an interview, she also admitted it took her a long time to acknowledge that she was suffering the effects of PTSD.

Lorraine Kelly has revealed she suffered PTSD after reporting on the Lockerbie bombing (Picture: ITV)

‘I was just doing my job. Nobody I loved was murdered – and they were murdered as far as I am concerned,’ she said of the attack, which saw Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi convicted in 2001 of planting the bomb on the plane.

‘For years, I always said, “I do not have the right to this, to have these feelings”.

‘PTSD is not me, that’s for all the people who went through losing people or were living there at the time. Or had been a soldier in a war zone,’ she added while speaking to The Telegraph.

She continued: ‘I work with Help for Heroes and so many people in the forces say, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’, and they are not fine. But I am fine. I was only reporting on it. That’s not to say I wasn’t very badly affected.’

The presenter was sent to the scene in 1988 (Picture: ITV)

However, after someone made a comment online about her honest admission , Lorraine hit back.

‘Well, just think of what it did to the people were actually working on the recovery and collection of humans remains. Think about the destruction in Lockerbie. PTSD really!?,’ the X, formerly Twitter, user wrote on the social media site.

Lorraine responded: ‘That’s exactly the point. I always (and still do) feel I’ve no right to have suffered any sort of trauma compared with the bereaved, the first responders and the people of Lockerbie.

She has now returned to the town to film a documentary about the tragedy (Picture: ITV)

‘I was only a reporter. But in the doco I learned PTSD is a normal response. I’m fine. I’m lucky,’ she added.

In the documentary Lorraine speaks to Drew Young, one of a team of people asked to guard the nosecone of the plane that had fallen in a field next to Tundergarth Church, about the effect on the residents and first responders.

‘A lot of folk wouldn’t talk about it… It’s like a shutter coming down. You know, you got on with it,’ he recalled.

Recalling her own traumatic memories, she said: ‘It was horrendous, eerie, really quiet, with lots of weird smells. But it is the aviation fuel that I remember most.’

Next month will mark 35 years since the then 29-year-old Lorraine arrived at the scene, which she also told the publication looked like ‘the set of a disaster movie’.

‘The exhausted rescue services searched in vain for people to save. All they could do that night, and in the days to come, was locate and recover the bodies of all of the dead,’ she shared.

All 259 passengers and crew, and 11 people on the ground were killed (Picture: Reuters)

‘Looking back, as we trudged through that field, I realise I was only able to function and do my job because it felt so utterly unreal. It was like the set of a disaster movie.’

While she didn’t seek counselling at the time, Lorraine said her own form of ‘therapy’ involved speaking to her father about what she saw.

The presenter has said one of the main reasons she made the documentary was to highlight the issue of PTSD and encourage people suffering to get help. 

It has been reported that 73 per cent of people living in Lockerbie at the time of the disaster now suffer from PTSD.

Return To Lockerbie With Lorraine Kelly airs at 9pm on Wednesday November 15 on ITV1. Lorraine airs weekdays from 9am on ITV1.

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‘PTSD is a normal response.’